Mostly irrelevant ramblings about music, comic books and other aspects of pop culture with the occasional political rant from an anti-statist perspective.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

What Is A Sheriff?

In Oklahoma, the county sheriff is the only law
enforcement officer that is constitutionally-elected. The questions that I have often heard this
election season are why does it matter who the people elect as their
Sheriff? Why does it matter what side of
the political spectrum a Sheriff falls into?

First and foremost, the people need to be educated on
what a county sheriff actually does. That is, what are the duties that the county
sheriff is responsible for? Without knowing what a sheriff is responsible for,
a person cannot truly make an informed decision on who they should vote for.

The sheriff is responsible for all law enforcement in
unincorporated areas within their jurisdiction. An unincorporated area would be
a town that does not have a standing police department, such as a rural area.

It is not, however, the responsibility of the sheriff to
provide law enforcement services in cities that already have a standing police
force. To do so would take money away from that city. Anytime a sheriff or a sheriff’s
deputy makes a traffic stop and writes a ticket for whatever violation occurs,
the money from that ticket goes to the county, not to the municipality where
the traffic stop occurred. This is fine if it is in an unincorporated area
because that town was never going to get money from a traffic stop anyway. But
in an area such as Midwest City, or Edmond, or Oklahoma City, or Del City,
money from traffic violations is an important source of revenue and a Sheriff
taking money away from these cities is, quite frankly, immoral.

The sheriff must maintain the county jail, establish
policies and procedures for the operation of the county jail, and monitor its
operations. The sheriff is also responsible for transporting prisoners to and
from the court and is responsible for transporting prisoners to state prison
after they have been sentenced. It is
the responsibility of the sheriff to take care of the prisoners under his
charge.

In this aspect, the person that is elected sheriff must
be an able administrator. This person must have management skills,
organizational skills, and sometimes above all, people skills. Being a person
that is constitutionally elected to the people, the Sheriff must be accountable
to the people of that county. And part of being a sheriff means that you are a
capable superintendent of the money that is budgeted to your office. This is
one of the areas where a person’s political view comes into play when thinking
of who should be a county sheriff. The
choice must be made whether to choose a sheriff that has been known to spend
their budget recklessly and without consequence or to choose a sheriff that
will spend their budget conservatively, only spending on what is absolutely
necessary. A sheriff that squanders away the money allotted to their office is
more likely to need more money and cause more money to be taken away from the
taxpayers due to the poor spending decisions of one particular office holder.

In order to be a capable administrator of a county jail,
especially in a county with a large population, that sheriff must have a good
understanding of the United States Constitution and fully understand the rights
of the people under his charge. He must be able to recognize that, although
these people are prisoners in his jail, they are still American citizens and
have rights just like anybody else. They
should be treated like people instead of animals. A sheriff that treats his
prisoners poorly is likely to be the type of person that cannot administer other
areas of the jail properly. He probably treats his employees, the detention
offices and the deputies, poorly.

In addition to these duties, the sheriff is also responsible
for serving eviction notices and all over civil papers such as divorce papers and
lien notices.

Lastly, the sheriff is responsible for ensuring that announcements
of foreclosed property sales are published and for conducting public auctions
of said property.

Keeping these duties in mind, the qualities to look for
in a county sheriff are honesty, integrity, competence, accountability,
transparency, and diligence. The person that a voter chooses to be their next
county sheriff should be a person that they can trust with their lives, their
freedoms, and their taxes.

To put it bluntly, the sheriff cannot be a politician
with a power trip and a badge. He needs to be a man of the people. He needs to
be a servant of the people. He needs to be a protector of the people from an
oppressive government by ensuring that the federal government does not overstep
their constitutional authority in his jurisdiction. The sheriff must uphold the
highest law of the land, which is the Constitution of the United States, and
protect the people’s God-given rights to life, liberty, and property.